The invention is directed to an intake nozzle that is placed on the end of a vacuum hose and is inserted into a septic tank or other reservoir of liquid waste so that the liquid waste can be sucked up into a vacuum tank on a pumper truck of the type that are used throughout the septic service industry.
Typically, the truck has a vacuum tank with a capacity of e.g., 3,600 gallons. A vacuum pump evacuates the tank to about minus 18 to minus 21 inches of mercury (about minus 10 psig), and the hose inserted into the septic tank sucks the waste up through the hose into the tank on the truck. It typically take about an hour to remove the liquid from a typical septic tank this way. Often, there are blockages in the vacuum hose that have to be dealt with and that delays the process. For deeper, vertical septic tanks, the weight of the liquid waste in the hose slows the suction action, and also creates weight that the pumper operator has to contend with when manipulating the hose. At the end of this process, the pumper operator has to clean out the hose, put the hose back on the truck, and drive to a septic disposal facility to dump the contents of the tank.
There is thus a need to increase the efficiency of the septic service process, i.e., reduce the time to empty the customer's septic tank, and to avoid problems with blockages in the suction hose and with having to manipulate the hose.